Many of the public parks and parkways system of Buffalo,

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York New York may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * ...

, were originally designed by

Frederick Law Olmsted Frederick Law Olmsted (April 26, 1822 – August 28, 1903) was an American landscape architect, journalist, Social criticism, social critic, and public administrator. He is considered to be the father of landscape architecture in the U ...

and

Calvert Vaux Calvert Vaux Fellow of the American Institute of Architects, FAIA (; December 20, 1824 – November 19, 1895) was an English-American architect and landscape architect, landscape designer. He and his protégé Frederick Law Olmsted designed park ...

between 1868 and 1896. They were inspired in large part by the parkland, boulevards, and squares of

Paris, France Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

. They include the parks, parkways and circles within the

Cazenovia Park–South Park System Cazenovia Park–South Park System is a historic park system located in the South Buffalo neighborhood at Buffalo in Erie County, New York, United States. The interconnected set of parkways and parks was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted as par ...

and Delaware Park–Front Park System, both listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

and maintained by the Buffalo Olmsted Parks Conservancy.

History

described Buffalo as being "the best planned city ..in the United States, if not the world". With encouragement from city stakeholders, he and

created an augmentation of the city's grid plan by drawing inspiration from Paris, introducing

landscape architecture Landscape architecture is the design of outdoor areas, landmarks, and structures to achieve environmental, social-behavioural, or aesthetic outcomes. It involves the systematic design and general engineering of various structures for constructio ...

while embracing aspects of the countryside. Their plan would introduce a system of interconnected parks,

parkway A parkway is a landscaped thoroughfare. The term is particularly used for a roadway in a park or connecting to a park from which trucks and other heavy vehicles are excluded. Over the years, many different types of roads have been labeled p ...

s and trails, unlike the singular

Central Park Central Park is an urban park between the Upper West Side and Upper East Side neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City, and the first landscaped park in the United States. It is the List of parks in New York City, sixth-largest park in the ...

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

. The largest of them would be Delaware Park, situated across the large Forest Lawn Cemetery to amplify the amount of open land planned. With construction of the system finishing in 1876, it is regarded as being the oldest in the country, although some of his plans were never fully realized. In the twentieth century, the diminishing parks would be afflicted by diseases, highway construction, and weather events such as Lake Storm Aphid in 2006. In 1939, Buffalo's avenues were lined with hundreds of thousands of

elm Elms are deciduous and semi-deciduous trees comprising the genus ''Ulmus'' in the family Ulmaceae. They are distributed over most of the Northern Hemisphere, inhabiting the temperate and tropical- montane regions of North America and Eurasia, ...

trees, maintained by the city's forestry division. The elms, which made up 60 per cent of the trees, were nearly all wiped out by Dutch elm disease in the 1950s. From 1974 onwards, efforts were made to increase the tree cover, and since 2001 the city has maintained an inventory of its urban forest. The Buffalo Olmsted Park Conservancy, a non-profit organization, was created in 2004 to assist the city with protecting the 850 acres of parkland. Olmsted's work in Buffalo would inspire similar efforts in cities such as

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

, and

Boston Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...

Current parks

The city's Division of Parks and Recreation manages over 180 parks and facilities, seven recreational centers, 21 pools and

splash pad A splash pad or spray pool is a recreation area, often in a public park, for water play that has little or no standing water. This is said to eliminate the need for lifeguards or other supervision, as there is little risk of drowning. Typically ...

s, and three ice rinks. The Delaware Park features the Buffalo Zoo, Hoyt Lake, a golf course, and playing fields. Buffalo collaborated with sister city

Kanazawa is the capital of Ishikawa Prefecture in central Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 466,029 in 203,271 households, and a population density of 990 persons per km2. The total area of the city was . Etymology The name "Kanazaw ...

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

to create the park's Japanese Garden in 1970, where

cherry blossom The cherry blossom, or sakura, is the flower of trees in ''Prunus'' subgenus '' Cerasus''. ''Sakura'' usually refers to flowers of ornamental cherry trees, such as cultivars of ''Prunus serrulata'', not trees grown for their fruit (although ...

s bloom in the spring. Shakespeare in Delaware Park has run every year since 1976 and attracts more 40,000 visitors from across the country.

Tifft Nature Preserve The Tifft Nature Preserve is a nature preserve in Buffalo, New York, and one of the largest municipal nature preserves in New York State. History The land that is now the Tifft Nature Preserve was originally part of extensive Native American h ...

in South Buffalo sits on of remediated industrial land, opening in 1976. The preserve offers trails for

hiking A hike is a long, vigorous walk, usually on trails or footpaths in the countryside. Walking for pleasure developed in Europe during the eighteenth century. Long hikes as part of a religious pilgrimage have existed for a much longer time. "Hi ...

and

cross-country skiing Cross-country skiing is a form of skiing whereby skiers traverse snow-covered terrain without use of ski lifts or other assistance. Cross-country skiing is widely practiced as a sport and recreational activity; however, some still use it as a m ...

marshland In ecology, a marsh is a wetland that is dominated by herbaceous plants rather than by woody plants.Keddy, P.A. 2010. Wetland Ecology: Principles and Conservation (2nd edition). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. 497 p More in general ...

with

fishing Fishing is the activity of trying to catch fish. Fish are often caught as wildlife from the natural environment (Freshwater ecosystem, freshwater or Marine ecosystem, marine), but may also be caught from Fish stocking, stocked Body of water, ...

permitted, and is an

Important Bird Area An Important Bird and Biodiversity Area (IBA) is an area identified using an internationally agreed set of criteria as being globally important for the conservation of bird populations. IBA was developed and sites are identified by BirdLife Int ...

. Also in South Buffalo is the Olmsted-designed Cazenovia and South Parks, the latter home to the Buffalo and Erie County Botanical Gardens. According to the

Trust for Public Land The Trust for Public Land is a U.S. nonprofit organization with a mission to "create parks and protect land for people, ensuring healthy, livable communities for generations to come". Since its founding in 1972, the Trust for Public Land has compl ...

, Buffalo's 2020 ParkScore ranking showed high marks in access to parks, with 90% of city residents living within a ten-minute walk of a park. However, the city ranked lower for acreage; 7.6% of city land is devoted to parks, compared to about 15% for

Minneapolis Minneapolis is a city in Hennepin County, Minnesota, United States, and its county seat. With a population of 429,954 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the state's List of cities in Minnesota, most populous city. Locat ...

List of parks

* Cazenovia Park * Day's Park * The Park (now Delaware Park) * The Front (now Front Park) * The Parade (AKA Humboldt Park, now Martin Luther King, Jr. Park) * Riverside Park *

South Park ''South Park'' is an American animated sitcom created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone, and developed by Brian Graden for Comedy Central. The series revolves around four boysStan Marsh, Kyle Broflovski, Eric Cartman, and Kenny McCormickand the ...

Park approaches

Parkways

* Bidwell Parkway * Chapin Parkway * Humboldt Parkway (lost) * Lincoln Parkway * South Side Parkway (now McKinley Parkway) * Porter Avenue * Red Jacket Parkway *The Avenue (now

Richmond Avenue Richmond Avenue is a major north-south thoroughfare on Staten Island, New York. Measuring approximately , the road runs from the South Shore community of Eltingville to the North Shore community of Graniteville. Street description Richm ...

)

Circles

* Bidwell Place (now Colonial Circle) * Ferry Circle * Chapin Place (now Gates Circle) * Woodside Circle (now McClellan Circle) * McKinley Circle (only partly constructed, finally completed in 2002) * Soldier's Place (now Soldier's Circle) * The Circle (now Symphony Circle)

Gardens

* Buffalo and Erie County Botanical Gardens, located within South Park.

Nature Preserves

, operated by the Buffalo Museum of Science

References

External links

Buffalo Olmsted Parks Conservancy"Municipal Parks and City Planning: Frederick Law Olmsted's Buffalo Park and Parkway System"
by Francis R. Kowsky, reprinted with permission from the ''Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians'', March 1987.
The Best Planned City, an online film about Frederick Law Olmsted and the Buffalo Park SystemNew York Heritage - Buffalo Olmsted Parks postcards and stereoviews
{{DEFAULTSORT:Buffalo, New York Parks System Government of Buffalo, New York Tourist attractions in Buffalo, New York Parks in Erie County, New York Historic districts in Buffalo, New York Frederick Law Olmsted works

Buffalo, New York Buffalo is a Administrative divisions of New York (state), city in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York and county seat of Erie County, New York, Erie County. It lies in Western New York at the eastern end of Lake Erie, at the head of ...